Tate Modern's Turbine Hall recreates a 1971 art sensation

Bodyspacemotionthings allows audience to crawl, clamber, balance and slide

by Charlotte Higgins, chief arts writer
The Guardian, Monday 6 April 2009


It was May 1971, and the opening of an exhibition at the Tate Gallery in London; the sort of thing that one might expect to be quiet, dignified and staid - but, as it turned out, all hell broke loose.

Men started picking up some of the exhibits - weights suspended on chains - and swinging them around their heads. First aiders were occupied picking splinters out of the rear ends of the miniskirted young women hurt on wooden slides.

"The trouble is they went bloody mad," the Daily Telegraph quoted a guard as saying of the visitors as he surveyed the battered remains of the installation.

The Guardian said at the time: "The participation seems likely to wreck the exhibits and do the participants a mischief."

After four days, the show - now more or less wrecked and the cause of a number of injuries - was abruptly closed. But this spring, the infamous exhibition is to be recreated at London's Tate Modern with, it is hoped, rather less mass hysteria.

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